


Bad at love

by TatianaMalfoy



Series: Music is my drug of choice [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcoholic Tony Stark, Angst, Character Death, F/M, M/M, Sad, Sad with a Happy Ending, drug overdose, not a major character - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 18:18:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16581629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TatianaMalfoy/pseuds/TatianaMalfoy
Summary: A series of failed relationships for Steve, before he finds the one.Bad at love by Halsey is the inspiration.





	Bad at love

**Author's Note:**

> Neither the lyrics nor the characters belong to me. So enjoy!

“Got a boy back home in Michigan  
And it tastes like Jack when I'm kissing him  
So I told him that I never really liked his friends  
Now he's gone and he's calling me a bitch again…”

Looking back he probably should have seen the signs. But hindsight is 20/20 or so they say.  
Late hours that turned to late days that turned to forgotten dinners that turned to pointing the blame at one another that turned into full blown fights that turned to him flying out the window and never coming back.  
Steve smiled as he walked out of the elevator and shrugged of his leather jacket on the way. “Tony? Babe? You in here?” he asks as he steps into their huge but cozy living room and stops short when he finds it empty. “I’m afraid Mr. Stark asked me to let you know that you don’t have to wait up for him. He’s busy in the laboratory”, Jarvis let him know. He smiled as he walked towards the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. Tony always did get caught up in his work when he was on the verge of creating something.  
///  
“Jarvis, where is Tony?” Steve asked as he woke up to find that the other side of the bed was yet again unmade. He frowned as he waited for an answer and got up to shower. This was starting to happen too often for his liking. “Mr. Stark had to leave for Paris in the middle of the night for a meeting”, Jarvis informed him calmly. “Meeting? What meeting could he have in Paris in the middle of the night that he had no prior knowledge of?”. “That, I do not know, Sir.”  
Steve really doubted that that was the case, but knew arguing with Jarvis would do him no good. It wasn’t Jarvis he wanted to argue with.  
///  
He looked at the dinner that was now freezing cold and at the candles that had long since burned out. He finished the glass of wine that was in front of him and sat up, walking towards the bedroom, not bothering to clean the table. As he took off the suit jacket he had on and closed the bedroom door behind him, he whispered a soft “Happy anniversary, Tony!”  
He was met by the deafening silence of an empty apartment.  
///  
“You should have reminded me!” Tony Stark yelled two days later when he returned to the apartment and found the table set, untouched since Steve had left it behind two days prior.  
“When, Tony?!? You’re never fucking here?” Steve shouted back, not being able to keep quiet anymore.  
///  
“Where have you been, Tony?” Steve asks as he turns on the light in their bedroom to see Tony stumble inside the room, drunk off his ass and smelling so much like whiskey that Steve could smell him from the bed.  
“Why do you care, Mom?” Tony snarled as he tried to undress himself.  
Steve felt his blood boil. “Tony, what the hell has been with you lately? You’re never home and when you are you’re always in your lab or drunk…or both. I don’t know whom have you started hanging out with, but I think you should stop. They are obviously no good for you.”  
“How would you know? Huh? Who died and put you in charge of me, Popsicle?!? Maybe I’m tired of all this bullshit between us. I’m never enough for you. Tony do this, Tony do that! Oh, and your absolute favorite, Tony, don’t do that!”  
Steve reeled back from the venom coming in his direction. “Tony, I’m your boyfriend, I thought-”  
Before Steve had a chance to say what he thought, Tony cut him off. “Well, maybe we should change that.”  
“What? Tony, you’re drunk, you don’t mean that.” Steve gasped out.  
“Oh, but I do! I’m done with this and I’m done with you being a bitch over every little thing I do!”  
With that he turned on his heels and left the room, the apartment, the relationship and Steve behind. 

“There's a guy that lives in a garden state  
And he told me that we make it 'til we graduate  
So I told him the music would be worth the wait  
But he wants me in the kitchen with a dinner plate…”

 

“What do you mean you want me to quit the team?” Steve asked his boyfriend.  
“Indeed, Steven. I think it would be best for us if you stayed home from now on. I let you finish training these last recruits, but I think it’s time for you to stop.” Thor said calmly as he took a sip of the Asgardian mead he had brought the last time he was there.  
“Have you gone positively insane?” Steve shouted. “What is in that drink that is making you say all these stupid things?”  
“Now, Steven, we must be calm. Look at my parents. The All Father went to battle, while my mother, the Queen of the Nine Realms stayed home and took care of the palace and the people. This is expected of us as well!”  
Steve felt as he had stepped into an alternate Universe. How did this happen? Why do these things keep happening to him?!?  
“Look, Thor…This is not going to happen. I will not leave the Avengers because you expect me to what? Stay home and iron your capes? Have you gone mental? You did not say anything about this when we started our relationship and I don’t appreciate you coming out of nowhere with requests of me quitting my job and my duty.”  
“Your duty is to your partner, Steven! That is me and I say you are to quit your job!” Thor said and slammed his cup on the table as if it was a gavel.  
Steve stared in disbelief for a few moments, before he turned around and started walking towards the elevator. “Where are you going?” Thor asked him.  
“I’m going to leave, Thor, before I do something that I will not regret. It’s my duty to leave before I kick the living daylights out of you for thinking you could order me around. This is not how a relationship works. You should learn that before you enter another one. Consider us done.”

“Got a girl with California eyes  
And I thought that she could really be the one this time  
But I never got the chance to make her mine  
Because she fell in love with little thin white lines…”

 

Steve sat ramrod straight, dressed in a black suit, with aviators that were meant to cover his red eyes and he watched as they lowered her casket into the ground. He looked up for a second and his eyes fell on the huge picture of her. Long, blonde hair. Big blue eyes. Beautiful smile.  
He shook his head and turned his gaze back on the casket as it finally hit the bottom of the grave. He hoped it was the face in the picture that people would remember when they thought of Sharon Carter and not the face of an underweight, matted hair and dull eyed, cocaine addict that they were in the process of burying now.  
He had lost her after she had gone undercover for a few months in Berlin and he was on a mission in Somalia. The only contact they had during those months were short texts they sent once a week that they were alive and looking forward to seeing each other again. When two weeks had passed with no texts from her, Steve told Fury that something was wrong and to pull her out. By the time Steve and Sam had gotten to Berlin, she had already been dead for 3 days, alone in a mess of an apartment on the outskirts of Berlin with short lines of white powder lined up on the small black table.  
“I’m sorry, Sharon” he whispered as he turned around and left when the final shovel of dirt was put on her grave. 

 

“London girl with an attitude  
We never told no one but we look so cute  
Both got way better things to do  
But I always think about it when I'm riding through…”

 

As he walked towards her grave, Steve let his thoughts wander to the old days.  
She had been there from the beginning and she had been there when he returned 70 years late for their date. He bent down and put the white flowers on her grave and smiled, sadly, softly and nostalgically. “Hey, Pegs! How are you, hun?”  
“I was driving around the country side and saw these in a field and I remembered you always loved when I brought you some when I came back from a mission. So here they are, 70 years too late, but here.”  
Steve didn’t feel bad for bringing this up now. With Peggie’s memory issues he couldn’t do it while she was still there, but now, there was nothing to stop him. He pulled out his phone and pulled up Youtube, typing the name of the song. “This is the song I would have asked you to dance with me”, he said as Fred Astaire’s “The way you look tonight” started playing…

“I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe  
That we're meant to be  
But jealousy, jealousy, jealousy, jealousy  
Get the best of me  
Look, I don't mean to frustrate, but I  
Always make the same mistakes, yeah I  
Always make the same mistakes 'cause  
I'm bad at love (ooh-ooh)  
But you can't blame me for tryin'  
You know I'd be lyin' sayin'  
You were the one (ooh-ooh)  
That could finally fix me  
Lookin' at my history  
I'm bad at love (ooh-ooh)  
Oh, you know, you know, you know (ooh-ooh)  
I'm bad at love (ooh-ooh)…”

 

“Where were you?” Steve asked as Bucky walked into their bedroom at 2 in the morning.  
“Well hello, sunshine. Yes, I’m fine, thank you for asking, babe. How about you?” Bucky answered as he started undressing.  
“Don’t get cute with me, Buck. Where the fuck were you? The others were back hours ago.” Steve snapped as he watched Bucky calmly change out of his gear and into a pair of pajamas.  
Bucky sighed as he looked at Steve. “I don’t know where this is coming from, but you need to cool it, ok? Thank you. I was out with Nat, we drank a few rounds and came back…I’m thinking I probably should have stayed out longer if this is how you welcome me home.”  
Steve blanched. This scenario was all too familiar to him. Popsicle…Mom…Bitch. Again and again those words kept running around in his head. He was with Natasha instead of coming home to him. As he had his back to Steve, Bucky failed to notice the rising panic on Steve face and simply walked into the bathroom.  
Steve sat up, nearly hyperventilating and silently crying. No, this couldn’t happen again. Not with Bucky. If this failed as well…  
By the time Bucky came out of the bathroom, Steve was a sobbing mess. “How-Steve? Babydoll?!?” Bucky rushed to Steve’s side and knelt in front of him as soon as his eyes fell on him and his mind processed Steve’s side. “Steve, what’s wrong? What happened? Are you hurt?”  
Steve started shaking harder and Bucky could barely understand the “I’m so sorry” that tumbled out of Steve’s mouth. “Hey! Hey! Breathe, Stevie. Sorry for what? What happened?”  
“I-we-early…”  
It took Bucky a few moments to figure out what Steve was trying to say. “No, no, no, baby. I’m sorry, ok. I should have told you. I worried you for nothing. It was just a couple of drinks to decompress. Come on, up with you!”  
Bucky wiped the tears that were still falling down Steve’s face and slowly maneuvered him back into bed before quickly getting in bed and gathering Steve in his arms and holding him there.  
The last thing Steve heard before falling asleep in the arms of the man he loved more than anything was “I love you, babydoll. Always have. Always will. Ain’t no way you’re getting rid of me now or ever again. You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid.”  
It was one of the best nights of sleep that Steve could remember ever getting.

**Author's Note:**

> No beta so any mistake you might find is mine. Feel free to let me know what you think!  
> *Fred Astaire's "The way you look tonight" came out while Steve was alive in the 40s. Sinatra's version only came out after he went under.


End file.
